Whenever I rewatch films from my childhood, too often I am disappointed that the film doesn’t hold up as well as I remember. This should be no surprise, but pleasantly there are those narratives that do hold up upon rewatch. Earlier this year I reviewed the 1988 camp classic Cocktail that, despite its quality soundtrack, is a film that I knew wasn’t good when I saw it, aged 12. Steve Martin’s Roxanne, however, delivered a warm rendering at the time but also holds up well today. Granted, much of the story is set within an absurd reality, thus requiring a suspension of disbelief, but more on that later.
Written by and starring Steve Martin, the film is a retelling of Edmond Rostand’s 1897 verse play Cyrano de Bergerac with Martin as the witty hero with one big problem: his nose. It’s so big, in fact, that it offers a nice perch for the birds. Furthermore, he can’t drink wine from a wine glass but must inhale it instead. Clearly, people don’t inhale liquids, and this silliness is why the story works. Daryl Hannah plays Roxanne, a beautiful, brilliant astronomy student who believes she’s discovered a comet. Upon getting locked out of her house one night without any clothes, she must trek to the fire department behind a row of bushes. There, she encounters Charlie (Martin), the fire chief, who she hopes will be able to let her back in. ‘Do you want a coat or anything?’ he asks. ‘No, I’d rather stand here naked in a bush in the freezing cold,’ she speaks while shivering. Charlie takes what she says literally, and when asked why no one had a coat, Charlie replies, ‘You said you didn’t want one.’ (Irony escapes him and deadpan humor seems to be his thing.) Then, when she asks if he would like to come inside, he’s already making himself a snack. ‘I sort of already did.’ (In any other film, such behavior would be regarded as creepy, but not here.)
Meantime, a new guy has just joined Charlie’s fire department for the purpose of training his incompetent crew, who can’t even figure out how to rescue a cat stuck in a tree. (Operation Snowball, they call it.) His name is Chris (played by Rick Rossovich from The Terminator) and he is high on looks but low on intelligence. A good-hearted simpleton, he lacks the verbal sophistication and brilliance that a person like Roxanne would need in a partner. But he looks good. Upon chancing her at a bar one night, Chris gets so nervous that he goes outside and throws up. Now, this is something that one might find hard to believe—how is it that this handsome Viking (to which he is referred) is so nervous around beautiful women? The two—that is, Roxanne and Chris—share a distant attraction, so Charlie, who also has feelings for Roxanne, gets stuck in the middle. ‘Call her up,’ Charlie instructs. ‘But then I’d have to talk to her,’ Chris replies. Eventually, Charlie convinces Chris to write Roxanne a letter. In the days before texting and email, this sounds like the best idea. However, after several hours, here is what Chris can deliver:
Dear Roxanne:
Hey, how’s it going? Would you like to have a drink sometime? If yes, check this box.
When Chris shows Charlie the letter, it’s clear that he needs some help, so Charlie provides some purple-prose romantic alternative. Sounding good enough, Chris insists that Charlie write the letter. ‘She wants someone who looks like me and talks like you,’ he says. And so this is the crux of the tale.
Set in a small, Pacific Northwest town, the film provides a Frank Capra-like feel, where everyone has good intentions. Furthermore, it is ultimately Steve Martin who makes this story a success, as he battles not just for Roxanne’s heart, but for his dim-witted colleague who has to be reminded to take the truck before heading out on a call. In his review, Roger Ebert notes:
Martin plays a man with a smile on his face and a broken heart inside – a man who laughs that he may not cry. He has learned to turn his handicap into comedy, and when a man insults him in a bar, he counterattacks with 20 more insults, all of them funnier than the original. He knows how to deal with his nose, but he has never learned how to feel about it.
Learning how to feel about it is something that is a challenge for Charlie, but as Ebert says, he has managed to leverage his humor and intellect to deflect the pain.
Probably the funniest moment is when Chris shows up at Roxanne’s house for a date wearing a ridiculous hunting hat to hide the mic and earpiece that will be used to deliver his ‘poetic lines,’ provided by Charlie from a parked truck. When Roxanne asks why Chris is wearing that hat, he says, ‘Because tonight, I am a hunter.’ Of course, the scene goes wrong when interference from traffic control begins to ruin it. ‘Car-3, Car-3…’ Chris is inevitably forced to remove the earpiece due to the painful high pitch and so he must offer his own lines. ‘Your breasts are like pillows. Can I fluff your pillows?’ he asks, which offends Roxanne.
Keep in mind that Chris is not trying to be manipulative—he has a good heart and possibly isn’t as dumb as we might think, since he does seem to have a practical sense about him, and humor when he’s not so nervous. Ultimately, he hits it off with Sherry, a cocktail waitress with whom he runs away to Lake Tahoe to become a card dealer. Sherry is fascinated by him and thinks he is talented in ways that Roxanne likely would not. These are nice people, but they have small dreams and Chris is probably better off with someone who doesn’t make him throw up.
One of the reasons I set out to write this review is because of the late Shelley Duvall who, delivering a warm performance as Charlie’s friend Dixie, can’t be overlooked. She has a minor role, but it is ultimately she who informs Roxanne that Charlie is the mind behind the many letters and not Chris. In childhood, I knew of Duvall through her performances as Olive Oyl in Robert Altman’s Popeye, her participation in The Muppet Show, and this film. (I’d learn about The Shining and 3 Women much later.)
As a 1980s film, Roxanne has undoubtedly been overlooked by younger audiences. While not deep per se, it remains a warm and worth-watching romance that carries a 1940s feel. Are there contrived moments? Sure, but the cleverness of the comedy elevates it. One would have to wonder why a so-called brilliant scientist would be so fascinated by purple prose to begin with but to each her own. And why would two random men in the opening scene make fun of Charlie for being a fireman, a perfectly admirable profession? Well, this was the 1980s, when such undertakings would not work if set in the present day. For one, Chris would likely have no problem texting Roxanne, but his poor spelling and overuse of emojis would invariably turn her off. We can’t all be masters in the written word, after all. Roxanne is a clever, nostalgic film worthy of your viewership. And should you agree, just check this box.
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More from Jessica Schneider: Metal, Stone, & Zip Codes: On Chantal Akerman’s “News From Home” (1976), Poetic Pragmatism: on Elizabeth Bishop’s “The Shampoo”, Beauty in the Ordinary: David Lynch’s “The Straight Story” (1999)